Small World
by Hazmatt
Summary: Jack's been promoted to Head of Homeworld Security, and is on an inspection tour, when he runs into someone unexpected. Stargate SG-1 crossover with Eureka.


**Author's Note: **Stargate is the property of Gecko and Double Secret Productions. I don't know who owns Eureka, I don't. If you do, you have a great show, it's fun to watch, please don't sue me.

This is my first story on this site. I'd really appreciate any input you could give me. Thanks, I hope you like it!

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In the small and always strange little town of Eureka California, Sheriff Jack Carter was trying to get through his paperwork in the middle of another very unusual day. It was a day destined to become even more unusual. He looked up when he heard his deputy, Jo Lupo's, sharp intake of breathe. Standing before them was an impressive looking man in an Air Force uniform, a Major General's uniform at that. When the two men saw each other, they both smiled, and the intimidating presence of the man was eliminated, leaving instead a friendly, personable looking man. Jo looked even more confused, especially when Jack got up and shook the man's hand before they mutually pulled each other into a man's 'You're a good friend and I haven't seen you in ages' hug.

"What are you doing here?" they asked simultaneously, then laughed.

Jack answered first. "I had a case with the Troopers that brought me here, I was then made Sheriff. What's your story?"

The officer smiled. "I was promoted. My new position is at the Pentagon, and, believe it or not, Eureka falls under my purview. So how have you been, how's Zoë? We haven't heard from you lately."

"I've been good. Zoë's good too, she's actually living with me, so I get to see her more than I used to. It's nice, you know?" When the other man nodded, Jack continued. "How are you both?" He asked.

"We're great." The man answered.

"That's great. I would have called, but Eureka's classified, and Sammie's always been able to tell when I haven't been entirely truthful, and then I'd never hear the end of it." Jack finished in an exasperated huff as the other man chuckled.

Throughout what Jack had been saying, Jo had been paying close attention. At the mention of Sammie, who was obviously close to this other man, Jo got the feeling that maybe he was gay. He certainly didn't look it, but he was close to a Sammie, and both Jack and the other man had referred to Sammie and the man as "both of you" or "we" so she figured that had to be it. She was in for a big surprise.

"I know what you mean! There are times I wish I had never met Sammie, for the same reasons! Then she smiles at me and I know that I'd be lost without her!" The officer caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye and couldn't help but laugh at the wide eyed expression on Joe's face. Jack saw where the man was looking, and couldn't help but join in.

"Where are my manners," Jack said, still laughing. He turned to the man at his side. "This is Jo Lupo, my Deputy. Jo this is -" He never got the opportunity to answer because Zoë had just walked in and spotted the visitor.

"Uncle Jack!" She exclaimed, throwing herself into his arms when he turned around to face her after hearing her voice.

"Zoë!" He exclaimed right back as he picked her up and swung her around. "How are you?" he asked, letting her down.

"I'm great! How are you? Is Auntie Sammie here too?" She asked her uncle, as she looked at him hopefully.

"I'm pretty good myself, kid. Sorry, but Sammie's not here. She's doing good though. She doesn't know that you live here, but she was glad when I told her I had to come her. Honestly, I think she just wanted me out of the house. She's pregnant, and I think I've been driving her up the walls trying to make sure everything goes right and that she's okay."

Zoë and Jack chuckled at 'Uncle Jack's' statement. "Did you get all overprotective on her again?" Jack asked. When the other Jack gave a sheepish grin, Eureka's Sheriff couldn't help but laugh, and his daughter joined him. "That woman could kick your ass without an effort if it was provoked and you know it!"

"I know, I've seen her take down guys that were twice her size, but she's still my wife and I love her. I just want everything to go okay, and I don't want her worrying about looking after herself. I like looking after her, and most of the time I think she likes it too; she doesn't have to be strong for once because she knows that I'll never let anything hurt her. It just that now that she's pregnant, everything is overwhelming her, me especially, as much as I try not to, and she just wants me to leave her alone sometimes. We both know that the end will be worth it though, we'll have a baby. There ain't nothing better then having a kid all your own." He said this last sentence wistfully and gave Zoë a one armed hug when she approached him after hearing the sad note to his voice.

Both her and her Dad knew about Charlie, and they knew that a lot of the way Jack was acting now towards Sammie was due to his fear that something bad would happen to this child too.

Throughout this all, Jo had stared at them all in shock, and it was the soon to be father that noticed. He reached out his hand and spoke. "Hi, I'm Jack O'Neill," he nodded in the direction of the Sheriff, "I'm married to his baby sister." He said this with a charming, open smile that Jo found infectious, and she too started smiling.

"I see you're a General," she cocked her head to the side, as she studied him. "Aren't you a little young for that?" He laughed at that, and shook his head.

"Young for a general? No, immature for one? Yes. I still don't know why they gave me my first star, let alone my second. My wife insists that I should have been a general a long time ago." He smiled at her.

"What do you say to that?" Jo asked.

"That if I had been made a general a long time ago, I wouldn't have met her and I wouldn't have the wonderful life that I have. I also said that if I could only have that life I had now if I was a Colonel, then I would have gladly stayed a bird."

"How does she reply to that?"

"She says that she'll concede to my first point, that she'd never want to miss out on what we have together, then she argues that the reason that it took so long for us to get together was because I was a Colonel, and all those issues went away not long after I was promoted." He gave a wry shake of his head. "She's right too."

"How long did it take for you to get together?" Jo was very curious. She found this man intriguing and wondered how any woman could resist him if they were both single.

"Eight years," Jo's eyes practically popped out of her head. Both Jacks and Zoë laughed at her expression, the Sheriff and his daughter finding this conversation highly amusing. Jack continued, "We were in the same chain of command, and while I didn't care about my career, I did care about hers, and I didn't want to hurt her in any way. I still don't care about my career, and I still care about hers," Jack paused for a moment before saying proudly "I wouldn't be surprised if she became the youngest general in the Air Force. They can't get better than her, and she's got what it takes be in charge. She's got this way a leading people and inspiring them, and everyone know not to do something dumb, because watch out!" The last part was said with a mischievous grin.

Jo was just about to say something when her conversation partner's phone rang. He pulled it out and looked at the display. "Your boss?" Jack asked.

"Yup," he replied with a grin before opening his phone. "Hey Honey! How are you?" As he had answered the phone, his whole facial expression changed. It had been soft and affectionate when he spoke of her, but now that he was speaking to her, it was tender and loving as well. Jo watched the transformation in awe before she turned to face her boss. He nodded softly before speaking.

"That right there is the reason that I didn't try to talk Sammie out of marrying him as I had wanted to upon first meeting him. He is quite a bit older than her, he's been divorced, and he's in the Air Force. Add to that that my sister is notoriously bad at picking good men and he acted like a jerk to me the day we met before Sammie showed up, and I was ready to tell her that she'd picked another bad one. Then she got there and his entire demeanour instantly changed to the man that you were just talking to who looked at my sister with the same look on his face as he has now. It was then I knew that she had finally found a man who would treat her right and give her the respect that she deserved while doing everything in his power to protect her and keep her happy, even if she didn't think she needed it, and I knew that above all, he would never hurt her. I later learned that he had acted the way he had towards me because he was afraid that I would react the same way Mark had, and he was trying to save her the heartache of having two brothers treat her bad after meeting him instead of just one."

Jo looked stunned. "Who's Mark?"

It was Zoë who answered. "He's Dad's older brother, and he's always had a problem with Auntie Sammie. First it was because she was so much smarted than him, then because she wanted to join the Air Force and so on. The most recent 'offence' was that she broke up with his scum of a friend and got married to Uncle Jack instead, especially because he's Air Force too."

Jo glanced at Jack, who was still happily talking to his wife, taking in his chest full of metals, then looked between the two in front of her. "He seems like a really nice guy. Why does your brother have such a problem with him, and what's with the Air Force thing you mentioned?"

Jack sighed. "Mark has a problem with the Air Force because of our parents."

"Do they have a problem with the Air Force?"

Jack chuckled softly. "No, Dad's a Major General in the Air Force, just like Jack," he paused to chuckle at the fact that his Dad, Jacob Carter, had the same rank as his brother-in-law, Jack O'Neill, before he continued. "Mom's only problem with the Air Force was that it meant that Dad was away all the time. No, Mark has a problem with the Air Force because Dad had a meeting that went long one day when he was supposed to pick up Mom from the Mall. He was late, so Mom took a cab. They were hit by a drunk driver and both Mom and the cab driver died. Mark always blamed Dad, and by extension, the Air Force. Mark had always been less than tolerant of Sammie due to her intelligence, when she decided to join the Air Force, that was it for him. He started to treat Sammie the same way he treated Dad, with contempt." Jack shook his head.

"Dad and Sammie made an attempt to reconcile their differences with Mark a few years ago, and it worked until Sammie broke up with the guy she was seeing. He was scum and a friend of Mark. He had set them up, so when Sammie broke up with the friend and started seeing Jack shortly after, Mark didn't take it well. He didn't take well to the fact that not only did Sammie break up with his bud, but also started seeing an Air Force officer several years older than her, and ended up marrying him."

"It's not like they were engaged or anything. They weren't even serious. They'd gone on, like two dates and he'd done a background check on her, then stalked her. She found out and kicked him to the curb. Then she called her family and they got together to comfort her and have a movie night."

Jo had missed the 'they' Zoë had spoken, so asked: "She called you and you went to comfort her after _two_ dates!" She was about to go on about how she thought this Sammie was supposed to be a big strong Air Force officer when her boss interrupted.

"We're not the 'family' Zoë was talking about. There are five of them, they're really close, and they're always there for each other when they need someone. I think the group has expanded to eight, sometime nine, because they're never ones to exclude partners. When they all met, it was five single people, Sammie, her best friend, a doctor named Janet, and Sammie's teammates Jack, Daniel, and 'T' they call him. Sometimes they call him 'Murray'. Now, Sammie and Jack are married, as are Daniel and Janet. T got married to a woman outside their group, so when they get together, she comes too. Janet has a daughter, she was orphaned, and the team found her. Janet adopted her, so when she not at university, she sometimes goes too, and hangs out with her 'aunts and uncles'. The other two are Sammie's new teammates, Cam and Vala. From what Sammie tells me, with the way those two act around each other, it won't be long until they too are married. I've never seen a group of people so different that are so close where they are not biologically related, even then, I've never seen families as close as these people."

"Besides, Auntie Sammie is the strongest person I've ever met, but sometimes things get to be too much and you need support. She's had some bad experiences with men in the past, so when she thinks things are going okay, then something like what that guy did to her happens, it throws her. So she turns to her friends who help her get back on an even keel. It was these same friends that helped her get a better relationship with Grandpa, and made her get a life and not drown herself in work in her lab. Oh, and they helped her deal with the whole 'Jonas' thing when it came back to haunt her."

At the mention of Jonas, Jack had shot his brother-in-law and niece a dark look that they could tell was not directed at them, but at his ire at what the man had done to Sammie. Jo however, looked worried.

"He's just always hated how badly Jonas messed with her. She had been engaged to the man, then he'd turned violent, so she left him. Four or five years later, he ends up being assigned to the same base Auntie Sammie was at. He went crazy and ended up dead, but not before he held her hostage, killed part of his team and almost killed her team and the rest of his. She had trouble reconciling the fact that she hadn't shot him when the opportunity arose. They helped her deal with seeing him again and with how different he was."

Jo nodded her head thoughtfully, wondering if she would have been able to shoot a former flame. Somehow she doubted she could have. It was then that she heard what the man on the phone was saying.

"Guess who I'm looking at right now?" There was a pause before he chuckled. He saw the looks on the faces of other people and replayed in his head what his darling wife had just said.

"_Jack, I'm not psychic, so I have no idea who you're looking at. Just let me tell you, if it's a woman who is not a close friend, family member or work associate, I will skin you alive!_" Sam warned through the phone.

"Yes, there's a woman here, and before you skin me because I don't know her, she's not who I'm looking at. I'm looking at your favourite niece and her father." Jack grinned, he loved being cryptic, it was so much fun, especially with his wife, because she always likened on to what he was saying but had a confused tone and had to puzzle it out before she got the context. It usually all happened in the span of half a second, so it was fun to see the rapid movement of her facial expressions.

"_My favourite niece and her – Jack where the hell could you possibly be that you're seeing Zoë and Jack? I thought you were in – Zoë and Jack are in Eureka?! Why didn't they tell me?! Why didn't __you__ tell me?_" she demanded.

"I don't know why he didn't tell you. As for me, I only found out that they were here when I walked into the Sheriff's office."

"_Why would you find out in the Sheriff's – Jack's the Sheriff? He definitely should have told me that! He'd better not be seeing someone or I will kill him!_" Sam declared harshly, clearly upset that her brother hadn't told all this good news. "_He's happy there isn't he? I could understand him not telling me if he were unhappy, but I __know__ Eureka, and I know it's the kind of place he'd love. He's always had a thing for characters, and that town's __full__ of them._" She sounded teary now, and though he knew it was in part due to the hormone brought on by her pregnancy, it still upset him that she felt this way.

He put his hand lightly over the speaker on the phone and turned to face the group. "Hey Jack, are you seeing anyone?"

The man in question looked startled, not having expected his sister husband to ask him that, especially when he knew that this was supposed to be a business trip. "No, I'm not seeing anyone."

The man with the phone nodded thoughtfully, then asked: "Are you happy here?"

Again a stunned Sheriff replied. "Yeah, I'm happy. It's a great place."

Another nod was his response before the phone once again held Jack O'Neill's attention.

"That was odd." Jack said to his daughter and Jo, both of them nodded, then looked at each other in alarm before Jack groaned. "Please, no." Just as he was about to think on it further, Alison Blake walked in, and Jack's attention was refocused away from the concerns that had previously circled his brain about what could possible be making Jack act so out of character.

She smiled in greeting, her eyes acknowledging the three of them before focusing on the Sheriff. "Hey, have any of you seen an Air Force General around here? I was supposed to have a meeting with him at Global, but he didn't show up."

Jack grinned slightly before he pointed over his shoulder at the other man in the room. "You mean him?"

Alison followed his hand and blushed slightly before a faint tilting of her lips appeared. "Yeah, I think I do."

"Hey Jack, get off the phone and get back to work! Sammie would kill you if she found out that you missed a meeting because you were talking to her!" Jack said in a slightly raised voice, slightly startling Alison, who still captured his gaze, and making a grin appear on the General's face.

"Thanks Jack, now she knows and I'm going to be flayed when I walk through the door! Make it up to me and put her in a good mood! Talk to her, and you better explain yourself but good, or she's going to come down here and do the same to you!" Though he said this in a severe voice, the grin never left his face.

The Sheriff's grin spread. "Deal." He then took the offered phone.

The General walked to his niece and the two women standing with her and familiarly wrapped his arm around her shoulders, causing a slightly concerned look to spread across Alison's face, because though she would never say it, she had feelings for Jack, and though as a mother, she looked out for Zoë, she did it more so because she cared about him and that extended to his daughter. It extended to his daughter and strange men touching her.

Before Alison had an opportunity to object to the General's action, he spoke… to Zoë. "Hey Zoster, how 'bout you introduce me to the woman who will be responsible for my torture?" He spoke with a grin that belied the dramatic words he had spoken and he gravity with which they held.

Zoë wrinkled her nose at the nickname and lightly, playfully shoved him in the ribs while giggling, earning her an exaggerated groan of mock pain and a paternal look of adoration.

"Absolutely. Alison this is General Jack O'Neill. Uncle Jack, Alison Blake." Jack offer the hand that wasn't around Zoë's shoulder, and Alison took it with a slightly raised eyebrow that made Jack grin.

Alison looked at Jack's daughter and the man she had termed 'Uncle Jack' with slight surprise. Zoë didn't strike her as the kind of kid who called paternal friends 'aunt' or 'uncle' so she had to wonder why she had called the attractive general 'uncle'.

"'Uncle'?" She asked her surprise betrayed by her tone and her eyebrow raising further, causing 'Uncle Jack' grin to transform into a smirk.

"Yeah," he replied, squeezing Zoë's shoulder lightly as he looked down at her, eliciting another giggle, "Uncle Jack. Please call me Jack though, okay? I only let people under twenty call me Uncle, otherwise it makes me feel old." This comment caused a light chuckle from the women and a thoughtful look to cross Zoë's face.

"Does that mean I have to stop calling you Uncle when I'm twenty?" she asked in slight apprehension.

He chuckled himself. "No, 'cause by then I will be old, so it won't matter."

Zoë giggled again. "Don't let Auntie Sammie hear you say that or she'll give you a what-for for saying you're old." Jack chuckled at that.

"Well, I don't want that, so I just won't tell her," he paused a moment, then looked quickly at Jack. Upon seeing the grin on his brother-in-law's face, Jack groaned. "Why did I give him the phone?" he asked himself in exasperation, causing Zoë to brake up again.

"Because you wanted to cheer her up after she found out that Dad didn't tell her that we live here, and you would do anything to make her happy. You do know that that's the only reason that Dad didn't give you a piece of his mind the first time he met you don't you? Because he knew from that meeting that you wouldn't hurt his baby sister in any way." Jack smiled warmly at her and ruffled her hair affectionately.

"Thanks, kid." He then turned his attention to Alison. "I'm sorry, my wife would shoot me if she had seen me be so rude at to not only miss our meeting, but to them ignore you after our introduction. Please accept my apologies."

Zoë looked at him in shock, then turned to her Dad as she cautiously backed away from Jack. "Dad, I think there's something wrong with Uncle Jack, he's acting strangely." The three adult watched her progress, Jack with a slightly confused and hurt expression, and Jo and Alison with now guarded expressions.

"What, I try to be polite and suddenly there's something wrong with me?" Zoë looked slightly mollified as he whined, especially when Jack reached over and took his phone from the Sheriff as he was in the middle of uttering a sentence. "See what happens when I listen to you? People think that there's something wrong with me! If this place is anything like the SGC you know that's a bad thing." He whined, only stopping when he heard his wife's laughter. "Sammie, did you set me up, telling me that I had to be ultra polite in this place to get me back for being overprotective?" He whined some more, but this time there was a slight smile on his face.

"_Yes, dear, I did. I have to get my entertainment somehow, and until they let me back in that mountain, it's going to come from you! It'll stop the sooner you let me go back to work, but right now, let me fix this before my brother throws you in jail because he thinks you've caught something. Who were you supposed to meet with who is now at Jack's office?_"

Jack had been fidgeting the entire time he was on the phone with Sammie, causing Zoë and Sheriff Carter to believe more and more as the moments passed that this was a false alarm. "Her name is Alison Blake; you want me to give her the phone, allow you to fix this like you promised?" Jack asked.

"_Sure pass the phone._" Jack extended the phone to a confused and cautious Alison.

"She wants to talk to you." When she still looked nervous about taking the phone he said in slight exasperation: "just take it, it's not going to bite you!"

Alison took the phone and put it apprehensively to her ear. "Hello?" She was in for a shock at the reply she received.

"_Hey Allie! How are you? It's been way too long!_"

"Sam?!" Alison questioned in shock, and a slight smirk edged its way onto Jack's face while the others looked as dumbfounded as Alison. He hadn't realized that his wife knew this particular person, and was now finding her gag slightly amusing as he saw it for what it was, a way of talking to old friends while at the same time getting entertainment from him.

"_You bet! So, come on, answer my questions._" Sam laughed.

"Oh, uh, yeah, I'm doing okay, how about, wait a minute, there's no way, this is all a joke!"

"_What is?_"

"This! There's no way that your brother happens to be the Sheriff of our little town and that this hunk of a man who owns the phone is your husband! It's too much of a coincidence!"

Sam was laughing to hard to take offence. The others looked equally amused, especially when they saw the look on Jack's face when Alison called him a hunk. "_It's true, Allie, and I can prove it of that's what it takes._" Sam paused and when only silence answered her she continued. "_In Jack's wallet is one of our wedding pictures. I'm a little hurt that you don't believe that he's my husband; I mean you were at the wedding!_"

As Sam said this Alison thought about it and looked at the man her friend said was her husband closely, seeing in her mind the day Sam had gotten married. Even though she now had a strong suspicion that this really was Sam's husband, she still asked him for the proof that Sam said he could provide.

Jack nodded at the request, and pulled the picture out of his wallet. As Alison looked at it, she could definitely tell that Sammie was telling the truth, the look in the eyes on Sam and this man was too genuine for it to be a ploy. Besides, she was in the picture. So was Jack Carter. She looked up sharply.

"That's why you looked so familiar!" she exclaimed as she looked at his confused features.

"What do you mean?" Alison handed him the picture and a faint smile spread across his face.

"That day was without a doubt, the happiest I have ever seen her. She glowed with an inner peace that I hadn't seen her with ever before." He paused as he caught sight of something, and he too looked up sharply. "You were there? At my baby sister's wedding?" When Alison nodded all he could say was: "Wow!"

He was lost in thought looking at the picture while Alison spoke to Sammie and Jack spoke to Zoë and Jo. He was studying the way Alison looked in the picture, comparing it to the way she looked now. He thought she looked even more beautiful now, but then he wryly acknowledged, he hadn't been in love with her then.

Everyone looked at him when he quietly uttered: "Small world, isn't it?"

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**End Note:**

In my world, no one dies unless they are bad guy scum, so Samuels, Kinsey and Simmons are dead, or it serves my purposes, so no offence by Shar'e had to stay dead. I've always liked Daniel and Janet together better than Daniel and Shar'e. This also means that season six **_NEVER_** happened, because no offence to Jonas Quinn, he wasn't Daniel. Let me rephrase that, season six happened, but with Daniel, not Jonas.


End file.
